Washington, Feb. 10: Addressing his first press conference after assuming charge as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, said on Monday that it was depressing to know that steroids are making such a huge impact in a popular sport like baseball.

"I think it''s depressing news on top of what''s been a flurry of depressing items when it comes to Major League Baseball. And if you''re a fan of Major League Baseball, I think it tarnishes an entire era to some degree," CBS quoted Obama as saying at the event that was attended by 156 reporters.

Washington, Feb 10 : Ever wondered why we catch flu mostly in the winters? Well, Oregon researchers claim to have found the answer.

They have found that influenza virus survives and travels best when "absolute" humidity is low.

According to lead author Jeffrey Shaman, an Oregon State University, It has long been suspected that there is a link between humidity and flu transmission and prevalence; however, these efforts have focused on relative humidity.

During the study the researchers analysed data from a 2007 study published in PLoS Pathogens, which found a tenuous relationship between influenza transmission and relative humidity.

Washington, Feb 10 : It seems Americans need to very work hard on their spellings, for a new study has found that majority of the adult population is unable to spell words like "embarrassed", "liaison" and "millennium".

According to a study conducted by the London-based Spelling Society, 62 percent of the people find it hard to spell "embarrassed" correctly.

Almost 61 percent failed to spell liaison, while 52 percent misspelled "millennium".

Although American women emerged as better spellers, but members of both sexes struggled with words like "accommodation", "separate", "definitely" and "accidentally".

Washington, February 10 : Scientists have discovered a network of genes that gave humans their first teeth.

Gareth Fraser, postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech''''s School of Biology, describes it as a common gene regulatory circuit that controls the development of all dentitions, from the first teeth in the throats of jawless fishes that lived half a billion years ago, to the incisors and molars of modern vertebrates.

"It''''s likely that every tooth made throughout the evolution of vertebrates has used this core set of genes," Fraser says.

Washington, Feb. 10 : The dilemma before the United States at the moment is that some elements of the Pakistani Government continue to support the Taliban as "a proxy organization in Afghanistan."

According to Seth Jones, a terrorism analyst at the RAND Corporation, there is growing concern among American military and intelligence officials about different militants'' havens in Pakistan that they fear could thwart American military efforts in Afghanistan this year.

Washington, Feb. 10: In his first news conference after assuming office as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama on Monday called for the rooting out of all safe havens for terrorists in Afghanistan and other states.

Laying stress on his concerns about a lack of progress on the political front in this respect, Obama said Afghanistan lags behind Iraq.